Ah, the romance of the old west. Cowboys, cattle drives, the pony express... Also brush fires, coyotes, droughts, greedy land barons, and bandits who ransack towns and kidnap the population for ransom. It might not be as romantic as John Wayne movies would have us believe, but things were still pretty adventurous, a side of the times that Alawar chooses to represent in the time management adventure game The Golden Years: Way Out West.

In this fourth installment of Blue Tea Games' darkly dramatic adventure hybrid series, you join a band of femme fatales, once victims in other fairytales, to fight against a power-warped villainess and her plague of mist wolves. Fragmented object search scenes, side quests for cursed items, and a nice offering of gently-challenging puzzles add to your immersion in this action-filled, and oft times violent, adventure.

Being a detective for the Agency of Anomalies must require a good deal of patience and nerve. Patience because every door you encounter tends to be locked, and nerve because who would want to deal with secret Brotherhoods, strange powers, and unfamiliar terrain that could possibly be hiding a fiendish monster or two. In the third installment of the Agency of Anomalies series, Orneon sends its favorite detective to a theater filled with performers suffering the effects of special powers that are slowly turning them into creatures. Help find the leader of this rag tag band and reverse the transformation while avoiding the capture of the Seekers.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a princess named Sophia who was having a horrible, very bad, not good day. Poor Princess Sophia woke up in an abandoned castle to discover that (a) she'd overslept by about 100 years, (b) all the humans including her family had booked for places unknown, and (c) there was no local wi-fi. Being the intrepid Princess that she is, Sophia immediately set out to find the rest of humanity along with a decent half-caf mocha latte. Yes, our favorite non-magical princess is back in Awakening: The Skyward Castle, the fourth and final installment of Boomzap's popular adventure hybrid Awakening series.

Just when you thought secret societies were a thing of the past (literally, ha!), World-Loom brings them back to you in full force in their hidden-object/adventure hybrid, Dark Heritage: Guardians of Hope. With some unique visuals and a good puzzle-to-hidden-object-scene ratio, Dark Heritage will have you feeling like Tom Hanks as you chase down a mysterious killer. You know, if Tom Hanks were a woman.

The Flux Family Secrets series started back in 2009 with Flux Family Secrets: The Ripple Effect, followed by Flux Family Secrets: The Rabbit Hole just over a year later. Now, after a longer than usual wait, the third game in the series has arrived: Flux Family Secrets: The Book of Oracles. Skunk Studios has produced an equally high caliber game with Flux number three, continuing the story precisely where it left off and telling a hidden object-laden tale with a side of lush visuals.

One of the main tropes present in hidden object hybrids these days is that someone gets kidnapped by mysterious forces and you must rescue them, be it a prince, a princess, children, a whole town, or some random guy off the street. However, Fierce Tales: The Dog's Heart by Blam! Games goes in a completely different direction. You see, your cute little puppy is kidnapped by mysterious forces, and you must rescue him before it's too late. It may not reinvent the hidden object wheel, but it's still a pretty darned good adventure waiting to be played!

Offering up something unique and creative, this point-and-click puzzle adventure follows a young shepherd and his pet goat on their quest to rescue his stolen flock. The gorgeous watercolor artwork and nearly wordless narration makes this a poignant, meditative experience. While a few rough edges might repel those who are not as charmed by the artistic qualities, those looking for challenging puzzles and fragmented object searches set in a surreal landscape will be instantly won over. Which group are you in? Give Shaban a demo to find out.

From movies to books to video games, the "creepy" seems all-pervasive. Put an individual or group in some deserted, out of the way place with lots of shadows and eerie sounds and you've got the recipe going strong! Luckily for you, assuming you're the type that likes creepy things, Specialbit Studio has quite the joyride for you! In the hidden object puzzle adventure game Haunted Hotel: Charles Dexter Ward, you get rewarded with the creepiest of creepy: a deserted hotel in a bayou out in good ol' Louisiana. I wouldn't stick around for any jambalaya if I were you.

Here's the good news: you get to go to a small European village for free. The bad news? Well... there's this tiny issue of horrific and angry statues randomly coming to life and carting off the villagers for who knows what reason. Also, you have the good fortune of being the most prominent detective around! That means you get to go deal with those statues and puzzle out what in the heck is happening. Elephant Games has returned to us with a wonderful new hidden object puzzle adventure game Royal Detective: The Lord of Statues, so put on your bowler hat and get ready to do some mystery solvin'!

Here's the good news: you get to go to a small European village for free. The bad news? Well... there's this tiny issue of horrific and angry statues randomly coming to life and carting off the villagers for who knows what reason. Also, you have the good fortune of being the most prominent detective around! That means you get to go deal with those statues and puzzle out what in the heck is happening. Elephant Games has returned to us with a wonderful new hidden object puzzle adventure game Royal Detective: The Lord of Statues, so put on your bowler hat and get ready to do some mystery solvin'!

Children are disappearing from the quiet little town of Everlake; police and parents are their wits end but you're not about to give up. Enter a surreal world that is rather like a David Lynch version of the Drawn series. Superior graphics and added interactivity make the hidden object searches a delight, a diverse and plentiful assortment of minigames will keep you thinking, and the immense number of settings and locales to explore will make this feel like an epic journey. Forget about pragmatic realism and let yourself be won over by the strange magic of Rite of Passage: The Perfect Show.

Whether you consider yourself an expert sleuth, someone who can readily pin the perpetrator in any whodunnit you watch, or are just a big fan of searching for hidden objects and solving puzzles, this adventure from Eipix Entertainment has the perfect walk-on role for you. Art Deco designs, well-rendered graphics and use of live actors are just some of the detailing adding to this entertainment value. Although the premise isn't new, it's presented with such fine-tuned finesse and grinning affability that it's reels of fun, from the opening segment to the roll of the credits.

Look fast! The Snark is back for the third time! If you're lucky enough to be invited to join the Snark Busters Club, you can count on lots of adventure, hidden objects to spot, and traveling through surreal backwards worlds and fantasy steam-punk locales to solve the puzzles it left behind. As a departure from the first two games of the series, collect mostly whole items to form a new, more useful object. Circlet reconstructions directly in each scene keeps the focus on exploration and discovery, not straining the eyes. The fabulous graphics and player-pleasing extra touches makes Snark Busters: High Society even more charming than the first two.

There's nothing ordinary about this adventure hybrid from Artifex Mundi, creators of Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek. Sure you get the familiar tale of undead pirates cursed by stolen gold, but you also get an amazingly ambitious production with attention to every detail. You can finish the entire game without playing a single hidden object scene if you wish; just opt for mahjong, instead (or do both!) Gorgeous scenes, well-designed puzzles and expert storytelling are just a few of the top notch features that make Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart an experience not to be missed.

Of all of the creepy fairy tales we tell our kids — and there are some supremely creepy ones indeed — one that stands out is the Pied Piper of Hamelin, in which a town that doesn't like to pay its debts ends up losing all of its children to a dude who charms rats with music. This haunting tale seems ready made to become both a childhood nightmare and a casual adventure hybrid, so it's just as well that Blue Tea Games has taken up the challenge with Fabled Legends: The Dark Piper, a hidden object finding adventure that features lots and lots of rats, both in vermin and human form. Rats, why'd it have to be rats?

Azkend 2 stands out in the crowded match-3 genre through its excellent art, music and voice-acting, constantly changing challenges and tricky puzzles requiring custom approaches. Follow the main character on a journey into a maelstrom and back. With 60+ levels in story mode and tons of replay value, it's a lot of bang for the buck.

In this mobile puzzle game by 10Tons, Peablins are afraid to go into the dark, monster-filled forest alone but if they're holding hands with a friend, then all is good. Help them make their way through180 stages by arranging each on the grid according to their quirky preferences. While the touch controls are easy to master, the puzzles can sometimes leave you stumped. Joining Hands is the perfect diversion wherever you find yourself empty-handed and in need of some fun.

Ricardo Chellini's unexpected inheritance of a private island should have been a dream, but when he arrives to find the estate falling apart and discovers something wants him dead, he must unravel the mystery surrounding his family's violent, sad past if he wants to survive. A stunning and wonderfully creepy hidden-object adventure from Artogon Games.

The emphasis is on exploration, discovery and puzzle-solving in this Jules Verne-worthy hidden-object/adventure hybrid from GameInvest. An eccentric inventor thinks he's found a way to live forever by building a House of Brass, sealed off from the rest of the world, fully-mechanical and powered by steam. After your curiosity and amazement results in being trapped inside, you're tasked with fixing contraptions and making your way back outside. Your steps are dogged by an adversarial robot as well as the overly-complicated contraptions of the house's builder.

Here is a hidden object hybrid game that focuses so much on entertainment value, you'll feel like you're immersed in a high thrills, loads-of-fun B-movie adventure at your favorite Hollywood theme park. The power crazed famous director, M.W. Vernon, has kidnapped your mum, beloved star of the silver screen, Rita Ray. As you attempt to rescue her, you'll be led through a gauntlet of lunacy and lurid scene of derangement. While typical in terms of gameplay, Film Fatale: Lights, Camera, Madness! is unique in style and showmanship. Besides, what's not to love about a game that actually has "Bwahahahaha!" in its dialogue?

The fairytales you heard when you were young, the ones you thought stuffed with nonsense and meant only as cautionary allegories to frighten children into behaving properly, are not so far from the truth. So, as curious as Alice in Wonderland, you peek behind the veneer, following clues left by Fiona, a little girl trapped in another dimension, and become caught up in Otherworld: Spring of Shadows, a sumptuously-detailed fantasy adventurehybrid from Boomzap.

If you're a logic puzzle fan (both paper-and-pencil and electronic, alike), you've probably heard of a little game called picross. It's a crossword puzzle meets number logic with an artsy twist. Fugazo brings their puzzles to you in the next installment of their popular series, World Mosaics V, where you find a familiar experience with a new storyline and, of course, 100s of new puzzles!

The life of a fairy tale detective must be an exhausting one. For one thing, you seem to get called in at a moment's notice all over the world whenever anything strange happens. For another, you must then spend a lot of time fighting your way through fairy tales as they were originally meant to be: dark, scary, and dangerous. However, you are again up to the task in the latest adventure/hidden object hybrid from Blue Tea Games, Dark Parables: Rise of the Snow Queen.

Charles and his twisted son Victor are back in Mystery Case Files: Escape from Ravenhearst, the third and final (?) installment of the popular Ravenhearst adventures. Replacing the standard hidden object scenes with morphing objects, this is not your usual hidden object adventure hybrid. The mini-games are fun and challenging, and best of all skippable if they turn out to be not your cup of tea. There is a bit of back-and-forth backtracking, although not nearly as much in Return to Ravenhearst as Escape from Ravenhearst is divided up into more manageable sections. If dark and twisted with a side of gorgeous is your cup of tea, then this is definitely the game for you!

Remember Titus? Sure you do, he's that dummy who got himself trapped in a magic book his malevolent uncle left lying around. Then he called on you to help free a library from an evil genie who was ruining the classic stories contained within. It's been a few years, but Titus is back in the latest (and greatest) installment of the Azada series of adventure/hidden object hybrids, Azada in Libro. That darned evil uncle is trying to take over the magical land of Azada once again, and this time it's personal!

Death Under Tuscan Skies: A Dana Knightstone Novel is the latest hidden-object adventure hybrid in the Dana Knightstone series, and it explores the pitfalls of the life of a famous professional writer. Dana has decided to take a break from writing and accepts a gig as a guest lecturer at a University in Tuscany. Things start to take a turn for the mysterious when a handsome professor and a melancholy ghost make their appearances. Pretty soon Dana is blowing off research for the lecture to solve a mystery involving a girl that died young of a mysterious disease and her missing love, Giovanni. Those looking for a relaxed, non-scary adventure that still features ghosts should give this amusing and entertaining hybrid a try.

Storylines in the adventure/hidden object hybrid genre of casual games contain a massive range of scenarios. Some are set in the past, some feature magic and curses, some feature an orphan on a quest to find their family, some feature time travel, etc. But what do you think about a game having all of the above? And more? Check out Time Mysteries: The Ancient Spectres by Artifex Mundi to see how that's possible!

A remarkable sequel to one of the most engaging match-3 games ever, 4 Elements. Once again the elements are out of whack in the Magic Kingdom and it's up to you to make things right before all life ceases to exist. Prepare for tons of elemental delights!

This new puzzle-heavy hidden object adventure by Sandlot Games contains a generous blend of puzzles and hidden object scenes to keep you actively engaged throughout your adventure. Join Tess as she confronts nightmarish scenes of skeletons, monsters threatening to devour young children, and dungeons of trapped souls as well as imagination-inspired fantasies: a bee with a mechanical unicorn, a room covered in gold leafing, and an Escheresque hedge maze. Alternating from beautiful childhood fantasies to twisted fears and dystopic visions, every scene is a gorgeous piece of art. Playing Sphera is well worth the experience, just be sure to have a cheerful something or other standing by for when you're done.

Not too long ago a relative newcomer to adventure/hidden object hybrids, ChaYoWo games, took us on a journey through the heart of Southern India in The Dark Hills of Cherai. Now they're back and once again the player will be transported to a place few will ever be able to visit in The Dark Hills of Cherai: The Regal Scepter.

What would you be willing to do to recapture your first true love? You'll get to explore the answers to that question in Media Art's Love Story: The Beach Cottage, the second adventure/hidden object hybrid game in the Love Story series that grabs the hopeless romantic in all of us and takes us on a journey that may (or may not) give us the "happily ever after" we're looking for.

Ah, the Victorians. There are many tropes from their literature that still haunt us today, including eerie women dressed in white appearing at lonely intersections, pale, blood-sucking gentlemen in evening attire, and dark-skinned men wearing turbans. Perhaps the greatest of the era's paranoias was the thought of being buried alive, which permeated the culture to the point of having little bells and pulls installed on coffins. That fear was encapsulated in one of Edgar Allan Poe's great stories which has now been turned into a stunning adventure/hidden object hybrid, Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe's The Premature Burial. Yes, ERS Game Studio is back with their third adaption of a Poe story, and this one is a killer! (sorry, bad pun)

Ding dong the witch is dead! Wait, what? She's still not dead? Not only that, the old hag is back and badder than ever creating havoc in the museum in Echoes of the Past: The Citadels of Time, the latest adventure/hidden object hybrid by Orneon and sequel to both Echoes of the Past: Royal House of Stone and Echoes of the Past: The Castle of Shadows. Perhaps it's time to stop hanging out in that darn museum? Just saying.

Travel through the ages from the time of the Roman gladiators all the way to the Aztec pyramids. Solve riddles and brain teasers in order to collect Civilization Points that can be used to rebuild civilization. World Riddles: Secrets of the Ages is a worthy successor to Seven Wonders and is a definite must for all picross puzzle fans. Hours and hours of gameplay awaits along with a lot of interesting trivia about various objects from different historical times.

Often when game designers try to throw everything but the kitchen sink into an adventure/hidden object hybrid, what you end up with is an incoherent mess. In the case of Voodoo Chronicles: The First Sign by Space Monkey Games, start with a hard-boiled detective film noir, cross it with a horror movie, add in elements of steampunk, and the result is a fantastic, glorious sprawling mess of a game that is very difficult to put down and harder still to walk away from.

Awakening: The Goblin Kingdom is a magical enchanted ride and a worthy successor to the games that preceded it. As before, when you complete the main story, there are a nice variety of the main puzzles available from the game menu to prolong the experience. Gorgeous, fun and compelling, The Goblin Kingdom is everything you could want in an hidden object adventure hybrid and more.

A g-g-g-ghost! More than one, even! Actually, the mansion Ashley finds herself called to is practically heaving with spectres, all of them with unfinished business, and a mysterious being informs her that she is the only one who can set them free. Age of Enigma: The Secret of the Sixth Ghost is a point-and-click adventure from Casual Box. It looks stunning, almost like a playable Saturday morning cartoon (readers aged 30 and over, that reference is for you!), and even though the puzzle elements are a bit thin, the game manages to paint an atmosphere of intrigue that draws you right in.

It's been a long, strange year, hasn't it? First your great uncle passed away, then you had to move to the odd little town of Queensbury to help your grandmother run the family soup stall, then a curse hits the town and suddenly the only thing standing between the townsfolk and complete chaos is your great-uncle's magical spirit soup recipe. Wait, wha? Seriously, that's the premise behind newcomer Twilight Games' fabulously goofy new adventure. Play Spirit Soup: The Queensbury Curse and travel back to a simpler time when adventure games were goofy and magical soup could save the day!

The long-awaited sequel to Hidden Expedition: The Devil's Triangle has finally arrived! H.E.A.T. (that's the Hidden Expedition Adventure Team) is back and is finally going to rescue the pilot! So was the nearly two year wait for Hidden Expedition: The Uncharted Islands worth it? Without hesitation, a resounding: YES! The Uncharted Islands is fun for everyone, from newbies to the most hard-core adventure addicts. Most definitely worth the wait!

Do you think you're safe from the denizens of the night just because you turned the light on? Does the warmth of the sun scare away evil just because it's bright and cheery? Think again. As Redemption Cemetery: Children's Plight aims to prove, you're never safe from the demons of this world (or any other world). A follow-up to the first point-and-click hidden object/adventure hybrid from ERS Game Studios, Redemption Cemetery: Curse of the Raven, this installment forces you to ask the difficult question: how the heck am I going to fall asleep tonight after witnessing that?

Blue Tea Games, a studio that knows its hidden object adventure genre better than a chef knows how to boil water, is at it again. Following series such as Enlightenus, Dark Parables, and Forgotten Riddles is a tough job, but Macabre Mysteries: Curse of the Nightingale definitely holds its own, crafting an environment filled with intrigue, danger, mystery, and loads of shiny objects to find. It's a hidden object/casual adventure game for the most discriminating fans, and it never fails to impress from beginning to end.

When Amanita Design's Samorost or Machinarium meets a smart, non-formulatic hidden object game, The Tiny Bang Story is the beautiful result. A point-and-click puzzle game at heart, this charming release from Colibri Games will hook you from the start, keeping your eyes busy and your cursor mobile from the opening screen all the way to the very end. It's a stunning and very memorable game that will make you wish more games followed its careful design concepts.

Dream Chronicles: The Book of Water is virtually a pure point-and-click adventure experience of the old Myst school of gameplay, with some minor hidden object elements mixed in. Book of Water picks up where Book of Air left off, with the heroine Lyra making her way back home to the land of Wish after her adventures with the Clockmaker. Stunning to look at, a joy to listen to (the soundtrack is lovely as always), challenging, entertaining, and downright fun, Dream Chronicles: The Book of Water is a worthy successor to the previous games in the series, while setting the stage for the (hopefully) big wrap up that is to come.

Blood and Ruby, from Hitpoint Studios, features both traditional bloodsucking vampire villains and the new heartthrob type (he even has a cuddly scarf!) in its new adventure, but thankfully it doesn't take itself too seriously!

You might think that if a large, priceless statue is stolen in a cruise ship the police would simply prevent the ship from docking and conduct a thorough search until they find it. But where would be the fun in that? Where would be the opportunity for hidden object searching for clues in tourist locations across the Mediterranean? Maybe Italian police really do handle things differently. In Insider Tales 2: The Stolen Venus, a new adventure game from Intenium, Detective di Porta indulges in a little pizza making and even surreptitiously enters a Greek archaeological site on her leisurely course towards nabbing the culprit.

One passenger on a lonely road in the middle of the night is about to change your life forever. When a mysterious girl who you give a lift to a small town in the middle of nowhere leaves a relic from your childhood in the backseat, you go looking for answers, but might not make it back home safely. Artogon Games delivers a flawed but ultimately genuinely scary title that horror adventure fans will want to check out.

Dark Parables: The Exiled Prince is a hidden object game that focuses on finding fragments of items throughout a series of dark scenes. The game improves upon almost every aspect over its prequel, creating a fantastic hidden object gaming experience!

Lucid is a simple, colorful, matching-based puzzle game from YeaBoing. It ditches complexity in all its forms in favor of a pure puzzle experience, slowly ratcheting up the difficulty to keep your brain thinking as fast as you can match dreamy-colored tiles.

In 2009, the first Serpent of Isis game had hidden object fans jetsetting Prague and London in a quest to recover the titular thingummy and fulfill the dream of the hero Robert's dead grandfather. It was an excellent game that soon had people clamoring for a sequel, and now your journey can finally continue in, well, The Serpent of Isis: Your Journey Continues. Gamgo Games have made the new game in much the same mold as the first, with the hidden object scenes being the main attraction and the adventure and puzzle elements only there for a little variety.

Here's a novel idea: do something with the match-3 genre that's fun and interesting! Cave Quest from MD Studio combines a number of familiar puzzle concepts with a smattering of hidden object and adventure scenes. It's all laced together with a shoestring storyline that keeps you moving from one area to the next, solving simple inventory puzzles and swapping tiles like nobody's business. It's something fresh and interesting to try out, especially if you've been around the match-3 block a few times!

A fourth and much-improved entry in the logic puzzle series, World Mosaics IV weaves storytelling in with an excellent (and extensive) set of picross puzzles that are perfect for casual players to enjoy!

Ready for more buildings, contraptions, machines, and inventions? Crazy Machines: New from the Lab is another resurrected hit from German game developers FAKT Software. Featuring gameplay very similar to The Incredible Machine, Crazy Machines features over 100 new levels, each one more complex (and zany) as the last.

Muse is a brightly creative hidden object game from Big Blue Bubble that ditches the conventions of the genre to focus on pure, amazingly-crafted hidden object entertainment. The artwork could practically come from a museum, the story is unique, and even the voice acting is top-notch, creating one of those rare games that aims to do nothing more than enchant each and every player.

It's a hidden object sequel that does nothing but improve upon the original! You won't be disappointed with Mishap 2: An Intentional Haunting. Now, the fun goes to eleven, featuring crazy ghosts, fun mini-games, and a whole lot more of what got the previous release voted the best hidden object game in 2009!

The standard edition of Mystery Case Files: 13th Skull is out, so to celebrate, we're giving away copies of the game all weekend long! All you have to do is solve our little hidden object puzzle. Think you can manage it?

When your car veers off the road one night following a bizarre episode, you have no choice but to seek help at the comfortingly named Drowned Dead Hotel despite the frantic warnings of one of the young women living there. It quickly becomes apparent that you're going to need more than a mechanic to get out, and both the crumbling hotel and nearby town hold more than their share of unpleasant little secrets. Codeminion's latest hidden-object adventure allows you to switch to match-3 on the fly if you don't like item searching, and also provides some genuinely creepy atmosphere to make one very engrossing game.

Dana Knightstone is a writer, but she would really prefer to be a best-selling writer. A trip to Scotland seems like just the thing to get the inspiration she needs for her latest historical romance, but the mystery she soon stumbles on to is anything but romantic. The old hotel hides a lot of secrets, and before long Dana finds herself trying to solve an ancient murder case. Uncover the truth in this gorgeous new adventure puzzle game from Boom Zap.

Cradle of Rome 2 takes us back to the origins of the ancient city, telling the (abbreviated) tale of Romulus and Remus and allowing you to build Rome in as many or few days as you please, one match at a time.

A spaceship filled with traveling orbs has crashed on a strange planet. The crates holding its living passengers have been scattered across the world, and as the lone captain, it's your job to find them all. Ballville: The Beginning is a matching puzzle game that emphasizes characters, unlockables, and action over tile swapping, creating an experience rich in variety that will keep you interested level after level just to see what strange new things you'll uncover.

After a letter arrives seemingly decades too late, begging for your help, you find yourself drawn to Mortlake Mansion, which holds more secrets and dangers than its run-down appearance suggests. Can you figure out who to trust in this story of magic and mystery? A stunning hidden-object adventure title that puts players in an intriguing story that will appeal to any fan of fantasy.

When her boyfriend goes missing while investigating an old asylum, it's up to you to guide our plucky heroine safely past the bizarre nightmares and experiments that make up the Green Hills Sanitarium and this fun, weird hidden-object adventure title. Despite a few flaws, it's just the sort of engaging, creative title you might have been craving... especially if you're a fan of bad 1980's horror movies.

Re-experience this classic, fantastic example of adventure gaming and storytelling at its finest, or discover the series for the very first time. Follow Nicole Collard and George Stobbart on a trilogy of adventures that take them across the globe. Uncover the secrets behind an ancient order, find out what a drug cartel has to do with a Mayan artifact, and escape from the depths of the jungle after a plane crash. The Broken Sword series mixes adventure, humour, mystery, and even a little romance, and the complex narratives and challenging puzzles will keep you busy for a long time.

Bejeweled has been around for almost a decade, and its popularity is showing no signs of waning. From the original browser game released in 2001 to the 2009 re-envisioning in Bejeweled Twist, practically every person who's ever touched a computer knows about the series. PopCap invests a lot of effort into the scarce Bejeweled sequels, and as soon as you see what Bejeweled 3 has to offer, you'll appreciate the extra attention that was put in to getting you hooked on gem swapping all over again.

Going back to its roots, the latest game in this match-3 series is all about making you serious about spheres. Luxor: 5th Passage takes a sideways step in the matching genre, introducing some new facets while never forgetting its core gameplay.

Time to roll up your sleeves, don your chef's hat and prove to the world that you are not a great cook, but faster than a striking cobra in a Formula 1 car. May the assembly begin! Based on a popular flash game, Family Restaurant is the very familiar "assembly line" type of puzzle experience. Create the ordered dish as closely to the desired specification and as fast as possible: grab ingredients from the side and arrange them over the dish as required. It might include some baking or frying. It will involve much shouting and gnashing of teeth.

When a man goes missing deep in Louisiana on his newly acquired sprawling estate, his family turns to you to help find him. You don't have much to go on, and time may be running out... but his daughter may hold a clue. The last person to see him, she also claims she saw a ghost that night... but even in a place as mired in history and shadows as this, ghosts can't really exist... right? Find out in the seventh installment of the fantastically popular hidden-object adventure series, Mystery Case Files!

When Amber receives an urgent letter telling her the threat she thought she saved Westwind Village from thirty years ago has returned, she hurries home to put an end to it. Unfortunately, she returns to find the villagers under a dark curse and sinister magic affecting the lush landscape. Help Amber use the abilities taught to her by the shamans to banish the Dark Priests, thwart their resurrection of the Chaos God, and keep the world from falling into darkness in this stunning hidden-object adventure hybrid.

With the world under the spell of an evil spirit, set upon a quest of restoring the tribe totem, inconveniently smashed to bits by the evil spirit and spread across several locations. It's up to you to visit each exotic spot and get those pieces together in this absolutely gorgeous hidden object adventure hybrid, with an assortment of hidden objects and puzzles standing in your way.

Magnets, levers, buttons, switches, gears, springs, rope, blocks of wood... They all exist for one purpose: to create puzzles for us to solve! Or, at least they do in A Magnetic Adventure, a physics-based puzzle solving game from Alawar Games. Tied together with a loose story you'll forget the minute you learn it, A Magnetic Adventure is all about moving totems to special marks on certain parts of the stage. Getting there requires some creative puzzle solving of the "drag stuff around" nature.

When Henry Baskerville's father dies, Henry turns to the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes to help prove that the "curse" that has been responsible for the death of every single Baskerville has a logical explanation to dispel the rumours. But is the explanation really so elementary? While it definitely takes liberties with the story, this is a fantastic hidden-object adventure with challenging puzzles, beautiful visuals, and high production values.

Time Mysteries: Inheritance is a hidden-object adventure game where you play the role of Vivien Ambrose, a young British physicist searching for her lost father by using a magical crystal ball that lets her travel through time. Her adventure spans over a millennium, and is filled with different locales, interesting characters, and dozens of various puzzles to solve.

For some reason, everyone loves collecting things that are smaller than they are. We're not so much interesting in gathering buildings as we are looking at them, but if buildings were pint-sized, you can bet they'd fill our pockets like lint-covered jellybeans. Tasty Planet: Back for Seconds plays on this compulsion and puts you in control of a blob of gray goo that can eat anything smaller than it is. As you can guess, this is a dangerous thing to let loose on the Earth, but give it a time machine and all of the past and future could be in quite a pickle.

When Sara Davies goes missing, the media has good reason to suspect it's a hoax... especially since she's been seen at a distance on her manor grounds, usually within the company of a black cat. Can you and Inspector Dupin finally get to the bottom of things in this dark hidden-object adventure game inspired by the classic Edgar Allan Poe tale? And, more importantly, is Dupin ever going to do anything to help out?

Trinklit Supreme is a puzzle game from the purveyors of the equally-addictive Slingo series. Match up grids of blocks to form whole pieces, unlocking tons of game-changing power-ups as you play. The more you unlock, the better the experience gets, creating a hyper-addictive experience you'll pick up and play countless times during the day.

When we last left our nameless, amnesiac hero in The Fall Trilogy Chapter 1: Separation, he was plummeting down through a metal chute after having been indeterminably shot with an anaesthetic dart. Now, in The Fall Trilogy Chapter 2: Reconstruction we find our hero regaining consciousness in the basement of a 22-storey office block in an unknown city, and not unlike his adventure in the temple he has to find hidden objects and solve puzzles to regain his memory and find his family.

Play Knight or Princess in this third installment of the Knightfall series. Destroy groups of like colored blocks to help our heroes slay monsters, collect keys, and get safely to the exit. Survive long enough and you may find out what happened to your stolen loot, and what's behind this mysterious "Taxman".

MythPeople returns with another gorgeous puzzle game that bends the rules at all the right places. Heroes of Kalevala is a match-3 puzzle game infused with a village building sim. This means you get to swap tiles in MythPeople's traditionally dramatic manner and earn gold to build a city with. As you play, you unlock new buildings for your town and discover new power-ups, creating that "just one more level" feeling we love in our casual games!

Far to the north in an ancient tower a paladin may have gone astray and awoken something dangerous deep beneath the ice. It's up to you to investigate... provided you have the stones for it. The smash-hit rpg/match-3 puzzle hybrid returns with all the addictive adventurous gameplay you remember plus some significant additions. Clear your agenda for the next week and turn off the phone... adventure awaits.

Enlightenus II: The Timeless Tower, a sequel to the original Enlightenus, is an utterly intriguing adventure game. Calling it a hidden object title is not only inaccurate, it doesn't do the game's style justice. Think of it as a modern-day casual Myst, complete with hidden worlds warped by magic, puzzles that require toting inventory items around, and mini-games worth their weight in pixels. Enlightenus II is exactly the kind of game any casual adventure (or even hidden object) fan is craving.

Jumping on the picross wagon with a new downloadable release is World Riddles: Seven Wonders from Funny Bear Studio. Similar to the World Mosaics series, World Riddles sends you on a journey as you fill in picross grids across the globe, learning about the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World as you go. One key difference here is the addition of mini-games, small diversions that break up the logic puzzles for a quick round of jigsaw, picture completion, missing objects, and more!

Marking the fourth game in the series, Samantha Swift and the Fountains of Fate starts off with our tenacious heroine out-surfing the bad guys over some serious waves. This girl never rests, not even between sequels! Still on the trail of Cortez, Samantha embarks upon a quest to recover the Emerald of Judgement, an artifact that may unlock the secrets of the Fountain of Youth!

The dead are restless, but lucky for you they want your help and not your juicy, juicy brains. After a car accident, you wake up to find yourself in a cemetery; very much alive, but still unable to leave. If you help the anguished souls lingering around their graves complete their unfinished business, you may be able to escape, and set some wrongs right in the process in this stylish point-and-click/hidden-object hybrid from the makers of the PuppetShow series.

Hunting for what remains of her family, Christine heads to her Grandfather's last known location; a remote asylum, now abandoned... or is it? The prequel to Nightfall Mysteries: Curse of the Opera is unfortunately a little easy, but this hidden-object/point-and-click hybrid is still beautiful, freaky fun to fill your evening.

Now here's something you don't see every day: an adventure/hidden object game that tries to tell a story. A real story. And succeeds. Not only does Elixir of Immortality know how to weave an intriguing plot, it knows how to do it with pictures, setting, and presentation instead of loads of words. You won't find blocks of text or terrible voice acting in this game. All that's to be had is a delicious tale of intrigue, a lot of fantastic mini-games, and scenery so packed with so much mystery you'll want to wade in and start messing around with things yourself.

Strange visions are making Claire doubt her sanity, and she thinks a trip to visit her aunt is just what she needs to clear her head. Unfortunately, when she arrives, she find her aunt is missing, and the woman may have been involved in much stranger things than Claire ever suspected. Although it falls short on originality, this atmospheric point-and-click/hidden-object hybrid offers up unique locations, tricky puzzles, and a lot of mystery.

Have you heard about Gatsby? He's a millionaire, but that's all anyone seems to know about him. Some say he's a thief. Others say he killed a man. And what's the deal with his curious preoccupation with his neighbours? Find out in the remarkably well presented hidden-object game adaptation of the classic novel.

Little Space Duo is a platform puzzle game that puts you in control of two unique characters: the young girl Lucy, and a floating robot named Sunny. Similar to the classic The Lost Vikings in many ways, you switch between character to use their unique abilities to make it through each level. The animation is soft and fluid, the pacing is slow and thoughtful, and the puzzles are challenging even from early in the game.

In 4:50 from Paddington, it's Agatha Christie of course, so the plot is better than 95% of the hidden object mysteries out there. If you don't know the story, you're in for a real treat. If you've already read the novel, the murderer is the same, so it won't be surprising for you, but the hidden object finding and mini-games are still high quality enough to make this game worth the purchase.

A birthday party goes awry when Lyra suddenly finds herself teleported to another dimension by an unknown force. Lyra learns she must seek out someone named "The Clockmaker" if she ever wants to return home... but some unknown force seems determined to thwart her at every turn. The iconic point-and-click fantasy series Dream Chronicles returns with a new trilogy in this captivating first installment.

It's picross time again! One of the few big-release downloadable picross games has returned with World Mosaics 3: Fairy Tales. Continuing the fine tradition set by World Mosaics and World Mosaics 2, the third installment introduces plenty of new puzzles, a new story, and keeps the same smooth interface that makes it one of the best picross games around.

FBI Agent Claire Ellery wakes from a nightmare to find out her worst dream has come true; her partner has been murdered, and all the clues point to a tie-in with a case she already thought was solved and barely managed to live through once before. Featuring tricky hidden-object gameplay and old-fashioned point-and-click adventuring, the next installment in the Strange Cases series is engaging, involving, and fun.

Following the events of The Ripple Effect, Jesse, having recently discovered she belongs to a family of time travelers, is stuck thirty years in the past. To get back to the future (snicker), she'll have to make sure history happens the way it's supposed to... and uncover more secrets buried in her family's unusual legacy. The Rabbit Hole is a hidden-object/point-and-click hybrid presented in beautiful High Definition, and will keep you enraptured for a good while.

What lies beneath the shifting sands of the desert? Could it be untold riches? Or sweet, sweet love? In this cute little sim with tones of resource management and good, ol' fashioned puzzling, take control of a team of archaeologists hunting for treasure in the desert. Dig up ancient artifacts, solve puzzles, and maybe even play a little matchmaker. Just hope you don't mind sand in your socks.

Pizza Chef 2 does what few time management and match-3 puzzle games care to do: try something different. Instead of fusing the former with the latter or the latter with the former, Pizza Chef 2 has made both genres equally reliant upon the other, meaning you can't take the matching out of the time management and vice versa. What you get is a strong casual game of simple strategy, quick thinking, and spatial reasoning combined in a very rare balance.

What if Hamlet wasn't? Hamlet, I mean. When a curious time-traveler accidentally lands his heavy spaceship atop the iconic literary protagonist, the show must go on. Point-and-click your way through a quirky and decidedly non-cannon interpretation of the classic Shakespearean tale in this short but fun and original title from Alawar Games.

Resurrected from 2007 where it rested in relative obscurity, Crazy Machines: Inventor Training Camp is a follow-up to the original Crazy Machines game that features more Rube Goldberg-like physics puzzles. Use a variety of objects to assemble crafty "devices" that accomplish different tasks. The setup is something you might see in The Incredible Machine, though Crazy Machines streamlines the process with much simpler building mechanics, fewer pieces to fuss with, a better visual presentation, and more directed goals.

Strap on your point-and-click shoes, because these robots are assembled and ready for adventure! In this latest from Wadjet Eye games take control of a group of newly invented miniature robots with unconventional abilities who unwittingly cause trouble for their human creators when they stumble across a villain's strange secret. Fun, funny, and cheerful, Puzzle Bots is a quality adventure that, while short, is great for everyone.

KrissX ("criss-cross") is a rare and well-polished entry in the downloadable word game category. It's not a spelling game, it's not a word search/scramble game, it's not a guessing game (well, it kinda is); instead KrissX combines a familiar mechanic from matching games with letters and clues, creating something that resembles a mixture of Bejeweled and a crossword puzzle.

A photo is slipped under the door of Anton Muller's detective agency late at night. A girl has gone missing, and she's trapped in an unfamiliar building... or maybe it's just a hoax? Unwilling to risk a child's life, Anton sets out to investigate, and winds up embroiled in the strange, troubled lives of an unusual cast of characters in this unfortunately short but clever hidden-object/point-and-click adventure.